Monday, November 2, 2009

Through their reissue company “Bright Midnight” The Doors have been pretty aggressive about releasing concert recordings. Many of them have come from the 1970 tour, which was recorded in its entirety for the album that would eventually be released as Absolutely Live. In the last few years they have released three or four of the shows from this tour in their seperately, and what it has revealed about this most misunderstood of bands is that they were both unpredictable, and capable of reaching the highest heights in concert. Each show on the tour is very different from the others and the greatness of the show was usually determined by Jim Morrison’s general level of sobriety. His drunkenness did not guarantee either a great or a terrible show, it just guaranteed that the focus of the show would be Jim’s state of mind. Like some Rock and Roll Rorschach , the Doors reflected the times and the seething angst of their audience on a nightly basis. Sometimes it was brilliant, sometimes drunken foolery, but it was always interesting. On this 6 CD release the four shows the Doors played at The Felt Forum in NYC are presented in their entirety. Each night feels very different as the band runs through various covers- “Little Red Rooster,” ‘Money,” “Crawling King Snake,” “Back Door Man” and even “Gloria” and mix it with their artiest material-“The End,” When The Music’s Over,” Celebaration Of The Lizard,” “Ship Of Fools” etc. and present the audience with something memorable every night. If you are already a Doors fan this will be a most welcome batch of new experiences, and if you are not, you may find yourself understanding why Rock concerts used to be considered scary, revolutionary experiences.
Paul Epstein